Weeks after a critical West Coast port complex was crippled by a few hundred striking workers, the
East Coast is bracing for a possible walkout numbering thousands that could close 15 ports from Massachusetts to
Texas.
The latest talks between shipping companies and dockworkers broke
down Tuesday, less than two weeks before the contract expires Dec. 29,
leading to worries a strike was inevitable.
The National Retail Federation wrote to President Barack Obama
this week to ask him to use "all means necessary" to head off a strike,
which they fear could have catastrophic ripple effects nationwide. "We
foresee this as a national economic emergency, to be honest," said
Jonathan Gold, the group's vice president of supply chain and customs
policy.
Gold said billions in commerce at countless businesses nationwide
could be affected, from auto manufacturers awaiting parts to the
truckers that deliver them.
Ingrid Hirstin Lazcano,
founder of the Los Angeles-based Andean Dream LCC, said a strike on the
East and Gulf Coasts could bankrupt her company, which sells soups,
pasta and other products made from quinoa, a grain, grown in the
Bolivian Andes.
The company has two containers shipped monthly to both Los Angeles and Philadelphia,
and Lazcano said she's still recovering from the eight-day strike of
450 clerical workers at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex, which
ended Dec. 4.
"If the strike does happen, we will be paralyzed," she said. "We will not be able to fill orders."
James McNamara, spokesman for the International Longshoremen's
Association, said the union knows what's at stake for others but must
protect its membership.
"We offer the labor that keeps the commerce moving," he said. "If
management doesn't appreciate or respect the labor that has made them a
lot of money, then we have to do what we have to do."
A strike wouldn't affect passenger cruise ships, U.S. mail, military
cargo or perishable cargo with a limited shelf life. It also wouldn't
affect non-container, or break bulk, cargo such as steel, wood products
and cars.
The longshoremen's union represents 14,500 workers at the 15 ports, which extend south from Boston and handle 95 percent of all containerized shipments from Maine to Texas, about 110 million tons' worth. The New York-New Jersey ports handle the most cargo on the East Coast, valued at $208 billion in 2011. The other ports that would be affected by a strike are Boston;
Delaware River; Baltimore; Hampton Roads, Va.; Wilmington, N.C.;
Charleston, S.C., Savannah, Ga.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Port Everglades,
Fla., Miami; Tampa, Fla.; Mobile, Ala.; New Orleans and Houston.
The impasse comes during a 90-day extension of the current contract.
On Tuesday, a federal mediator offered another monthlong extension.
Various issues, including wages, are unresolved, but the sides couldn't
agree on what's become the key sticking point, container royalties.
The royalties are payments to union workers based on the weight of
cargo received at each port. They were created in the 1960s to boost
wages and finance worker benefits after increased automation cut down
salaries and jobs, making it impossible for the dwindling labor force to
finance its benefits, McNamara said.
The container carriers and port
operators, represented by the U.S. Marine Alliance, want to cap the
royalties at 2011 levels, saying they've morphed into a huge expense,
totally unrelated to their original purpose, which hurts the industry's
competitiveness as it tries to keep up with new technology. The alliance
says the royalty payments now amount to a bonus averaging $15,500
annually for East Coast workers who already earn more than $50 per hour.
The union says the payments
aren't a bonus, they're an important supplemental wage. It argues that
in its previous contract, management agreed to remove the royalties cap
in exchange for being allowed to use $42 million of royalty payments to
cover a previously negotiated wage increase. There's no way the union
can allow the alliance to revive the cap now and accept the cuts in
worker income and union revenue, McNamara said.
The sides have traded charges of
inflexibility, though both also point to a history of cooperation since
the last East Coast-wide strike in 1977. No one has ruled out renewing
talks.
But with time so short, companies
are pushing up shipment dates or finding alternative transportation,
said Steve Lamar, executive vice president of the Washington-based
American Apparel and Footwear Association.
Companies are already worried
about restocking after the holidays, and some are still dealing with the
effects of the West Coast shutdown and Superstorm Sandy, he said.
"You've already got companies and
ports and trade that have been battered by a couple of situations over
the last couple of months, and we still have this uncertainty," Lamar
said.
In Philadelphia, port executive Robert Blackburn estimates a strike could affect 60 percent of the tonnage the port handles.
"Frankly, there's not a lot we
can do except that hope that cooler heads prevail and, if they don't,
perhaps there will be intervention by the president," Blackburn said.
Dr. Phil Plait wrote a book called Death From The Skies,
in which he details the many ways the Earth could be destroyed by
astronomical events. But even he isn't worried about the world ending
anytime soon, because he knows the odds -they're "astronomical." So why
are people still talking about the December 21st apocalypse? Because
they misunderstand what the Mayan calendar actually says.
Spider-Man tangles with President Obama at the White House. 
Ranker
pulled in extra help to sift through the memes of 2012 and put them in
order for the convenience of anyone who wants to relive them. It wasn't
easy!
Last week, the University of Chicago posted that they had received a
curious package addressed to Henry Walton Jones, Jr. A student mail
worker recognized that name as belonging to a certain Indiana Jones who,
in the film trilogy, was a professor at UChicago. The envelope was
packed with Indiana Jones ephemera, including a replica of Abner
Ravenwood's journal. The University posted the mystery online and it has
now been solved. Turns out, the package was an eBay purchase on its way
from a seller named Paul, in Guam, to a buyer in Italy.
Mark Kernes Tweets: Remember Scotty Schwartz [pictured left]? He
was one of the Hollywood guys that hung around the industry in the '90s,
did a bunch of non-sex roles and even a couple of sex scenes. 
